On the 20th anniversary of an astounding feat the legendary left-hander can
reflect on the twist of fate that brought him to Warwickshire

There are a couple of subjects two decades in sportswriting teach you to address with caution unless you want to solicit correspondence doubting your parentage, sanity and courage to walk down an ill-lit street at night.

The first is Liverpool’s transfer dealings under Rafael Benítez, a topic for remorseless disputation that is still simmering. The other is to honour any batsman by extolling his virtues without appending the almost scriptural rider “but of course Sachin Tendulkar is greater”.

Hopefully on Friday, though, there will be an exception because, in a nod to Sgt Pepper, cricket is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Brian Lara’s unbeaten 501, the record first-class score.

Playing for Warwickshire against Durham, he began the fourth morning on 111, his sixth century in seven County Championship innings for the county and, because a day’s play had been lost and the captains were unable to agree about contriving a result, had a day at his mercy.

Seven weeks earlier he had broken Sir Garfield Sobers’ record for the best Test score with 375 for West Indies against England at St John’s in an innings of astonishing perseverance and insatiable accumulation. It was not much of a contest, however, on a featherbed pitch so lifeless that when England replied it seemed possible for a while that Robin Smith might trump him.

Lara had agreed to join Warwickshire 10 days before that Antigua Test and had signed a contract for a bargain £40,000 that would have surely rocketed had he dawdled over his signature. Dermot Reeve’s team had finished 16th in the championship in 1993 and had initially looked to recruit a bowler, India’s Manoj Prabhaka, who failed a fitness test in the nets at Edgbaston after suffering a back injury. The vice-chairman was dispatched to the Caribbean in some haste.

On such quirks of fortune and walk-on roles for now-obscure players are records made. He enjoyed other slices of luck during his marathon knock too, surviving when bowled by Anderson Cummins off a no-ball on 12, had a catch grassed by Cummins on 238 and was dropped by two wicketkeepers, Durham’s Chris Scott when he had made 18 and 395 runs later by Warwickshire’s reserve stumper Mike Burns who was fielding at square leg as a substitute for the opposition.

Between those lives and after the last, he simply kept scoring, going past Graeme Hick’s 405, Bill Ponsford’s 429 and 437 and Don Bradman’s 452 until only Hanif Mohammad’s 499 for Karachi against Bahawalpur remained above him.

Before then he had managed to convince Reeve to let him continue as the captain pondered a declaration at lunch. Keith Piper joined him at 448 for four and was instrumental in pushing Lara on, indeed telling him when he was on 497 and had just been clanged on the helmet by John Morris that they were in the last over and he had two balls to make history. Lara punched the next delivery through the covers to become the first and to date only man to breech 500.

Warwickshire ended the draw on 810 for four, their No 3’s quintuple century coming off 427 balls with 62 fours and 10 sixes.

A leader in a national newspaper the next day said “if Levi’s don’t offer him a lifetime contract after yesterday’s heroics then there is really no justice in the world” missing the delicious irony that the number was useless commercially. Lara was already the face of Joe Bloggs, the costumier by appointment to the court of Madchester who were marketing a range of baggy jeans and caps under the 375 label.

Warwickshire went on to win the championship, Sunday League and Benson and Hedges Cup in their annus mirabilis, and Lara finished the first-class season with 2,066 first-class runs at 89.82. He was also knackered, so much so that his frequent bouts of ‘treatment’ when Warwickshire were fielding caused some disquiet around the shires.

Like his 375 and subsequent recapturing of the best Test score with 400, the 501 was more monument than truly magnificent. The achievements are like the Burj Khalifa – one can admire it as the tallest building in the world without conceding that it generates as much wonder as the Empire State Building.

His 277 at Sydney, 213 in Jamaica and 153 in Bridgetown were infinitely superior, when the great destroyer of attacks was properly tested, those boxer’s feet danced and that bat came down from on high with the swiftness of a guillotine, whipping, caressing and thrashing superb bowlers around the field. Records are understandably important to players but Lara would have earned his immortality without them.